“Okay.”
He ends the call, shrugging off Terry’s weirdness. Probably just caught him at a busy time. Then he opens his map app and enters the Seattle address Michelle gave him. It’s a two-hour drive. Which means that at four, he needs to be on the road. Not on a paddleboard.
Avery will understand. He’ll stop by the shop on his way out of town and tell her in person.
SHORTLY BEFORE FOUR, he pushes open the door of the Sowell Bay Paddle Shop.
A figure pops up from behind a rack of wet suits in the far corner of the store. To Cameron’s surprise, it’s not Avery.
It’s her son, Marco.
The kid gives him a stiff nod, then ducks back down behind the rack without a word.
“Um, hey,” Cameron says. “Your mom here?”
“She went on some errand,” Marco is kneeling on the polished wood floor next to an open box, holding some black plastic thing with a trigger and a thin strip of waxy-looking paper trailing from its snout. A pricing gun.
“I didn’t know you worked here,” Cameron says, poking at a display of bright orange flipper fins. These are new since last time he was here. They’re lined up in a perfect row from smallest to largest. It looks like someone stole the feet from a family of ducks and strung them up on the wall.
Marco grunts. “Not like I have a choice.” He slaps a price sticker on the tag of a neoprene life vest and threads its topmost loop onto a long metal peg coming out of the wall.
“Ah. Compulsory child labor. A rite of passage.” Cameron laughs.
Marco doesn’t respond.
“So, any idea when your mom will be back?” Cameron glances toward the front door. “We were supposed to meet here at four.” He checks the time. Five minutes until.
Marco looks up. “Were?”
“Yeah. We were supposed to take a couple of boards out on the water, but something . . . came up.” Cameron bites his lip, stopping short of telling Marco the whole story. He doesn’t owe any explanation to a teenager.
“You’re standing her up.” Marco’s voice is flat.
“Of course not. She’ll totally understand.”
Marco fires off another sticker. “Right.”
“And I came here to tell her myself.” Cameron checks the time again. On the road at four. The most important meeting of his life. He can’t be late. He clears his throat. “Thing is, I kind of have to go. Could you let your mom know I came by? Tell her I’m sorry for canceling?”
“Sure. I’ll tell her.”
“Thanks, man.” Cameron ducks out of the store, and by the time four o’clock hits, he’s headed toward the freeway.
The Sob
Seattle is a dizzying maze of buildings and bypasses, tunnels and byways, skyscrapers that might be built right on top of the highway itself, like something from an impossible Lego set. There are exits left, exits right, viaducts and express lanes, the overpasses and underpasses all curling around each other like a bunch of huge concrete spaghetti noodles jammed against the hillside that rises steeply from the water.
He drove through it before, on his way from the airport, but it hits him more clearly now. Compared to Modesto, this really is a different world.
When he spots the exit for Capitol Hill coming up, he flicks on the turn signal. Stay right, then turn left, three blocks and a right. He’d memorized the series of turns, the post-freeway route through the city streets, just in case.
Finally, he turns onto the right street and starts looking for the street number, drawing irritated honks from passing traffic as he inches along, scanning the tightly packed storefronts, coffee shops and juice bars and vintage clothing stores with their goods spilled out onto sidewalk racks. It’s ten minutes until six on a perfect August evening, and the neighborhood bustles, a mixture of hipsters and neighborhood folks tethered to dogs. Commuters with messenger bags and purposeful strides.
Here’s the address Michelle Yates had given him. He double-checks to make sure, because it’s a plain gray door. After weeks of trying to get this meeting . . . this is Brinks Development? He had expected some shiny office tower, but maybe this is how successful people do it in Seattle. Shaved yam instead of pastrami and humble storefronts instead of steel skyscrapers.
By some miracle, on his second circle around the block, he spots an open space right in front.
He cuts the ignition and checks his phone. Still nothing from Avery. Should he send a text? Nah, he’ll call her after. By then, he’ll have a story about his father to tell. The slam of the camper’s cab door is swallowed up by the busy city sounds. He feeds the meter with two crumb-coated quarters he digs out of the console.
To Cameron’s surprise, the plain gray door is unlocked. It opens to a nondescript vestibule, apparently an apartment building. On the wall to his left there’s a row of slightly dinged-up metal mailboxes, a half dozen of them. Several fliers and pieces of junk mail litter the floor.
On the right, there’s a staircase that only goes up. Directly ahead, on the back wall, there’s an elevator, and Cameron notices that it has call buttons for both up and down. Michelle had said to take the elevator to the basement.
“Down the rabbit hole,” he says to himself as the elevator dings.
Right away as he exits, there’s this weird smell. Something waxy and spicy, like cinnamon, out of place for the middle of summer. It hits Cameron as soon as the elevator doors open. It must be coming from the candles, which are everywhere in the dark hallway, candles against mirrors on both sides making it look like there are a million little flames going off into infinity. Upon further inspection, he discovers that they’re fake candles. Which makes sense. What fire code allows someone to put so many candles in a basement?
What the hell is this place?
He follows a threadbare gray carpet down the hall and around a corner, which deposits him inside the world’s tiniest cocktail lounge.
It’s empty. A short bar, five stools tucked underneath. Warm light reflects off the brass ceiling tiles, giving the whole place a yellowish glow.
On the bar, there’s a small paper square propped in a holder. A menu. Mudminnow’s Bespoke Libations, it says at the top, followed by a list of drinks with ridiculous names. He blinks at the prices, making sure he’s reading them right. Do people not realize they can get a six-pack at any grocery store for half the price of one of these libations? He pulls out a bar stool and sits.
Something clinks, and Cameron looks up to see a girl come through a doorway behind the bar. She has short, bright green hair that reminds Cameron of flattened grass. She balances a stack of highball glasses in each hand, and her eyebrows register the tiniest moment of surprise before she begins to unload the glassware into some unseen shelf down in the well. “We open at eight,” she says, without looking up.
“I have a meeting.” Cameron clears his throat. “With Mr. Brinks.”
The grass-haired girl looks up. The expression on her face is painfully blank, as if Cameron were the least interesting thing she’s ever encountered.
“I’m serious,” he says. “Michelle set it up.” He hopes it’s okay to call Michelle by her first name.
The girl shrugs. “Okay,” she says, ducking away. “I’ll let him know.”
SIMON BRINKS.
Cameron has repeated the name in his head so many times these last two months, has studied so many photos of the coiffed man blown up huge on his billboards, that when this disheveled dude emerges from behind the bar with a tired smile, he almost doesn’t believe it could be him.
“Hi,” Cameron says, his voice suddenly shaky and nervous. “I’m—”
“I know who you are, Cameron.” Behind the bar, Simon’s smile broadens.